Patients suffering from a number of different diseases frequently must inject themselves with pharmaceuticals or other medications. A variety of devices have been proposed to facilitate these injections. One type of device is an injection device, which may be either a manual, or non-automatic, injection device or an automatic injection device.
Some injection devices and medication are stored at low temperatures (e.g., in a refrigerator). At such temperatures the medication may be more viscous than at room temperature. Therefore, if used in this refrigerated condition, the flow of medication through the needle and into the patient may be affected. For example, the increased viscosity of the medication may require the user to apply more force to the injection device to fully administer the medication. Furthermore, the increased viscosity of the medication may result in an incomplete injection because a portion of the medication was not dispensed from the injection device within a given amount of time. Additionally, the injection of medication may be less comfortable for the recipient when the medication is at lower temperatures than when the temperature of the medication has increased. Therefore it is preferred that the device and medication be close to room temperature when used. For example, some injection devices may specify that the user should remove the injection device and medication from the refrigerator and wait 15-30 minutes before administering the medication from the injection device to allow the temperature of the medication to increase and the viscosity of the medication to decrease. However, the injection device may still be used at the decreased temperatures if the user did not want to wait, or is unaware of the instructions to wait.
Some injection devices may prevent the user from administering the medication from the injection device when the temperature of the device and/or medication is less than a predetermined temperature.
By removing the injection device and medication from the refrigerator, and delaying the administration of the medication, the temperature of the medication will increase and the viscosity will decrease which may allow the usage of the injection device to be faster, more comfortable for the patient and/or accurate or efficient.